Receive the latest tech updates in your inbox

Facebook may soon be taking another page from Twitter's playbook by incorporating the hashtag into its service.

The social media site is working on ways to allow users to click on a hashtag to follow trending topics on the web, according to The Wall Street Journal. But it may be awhile before users see the hashtag show up on their news feed.

"It is unclear how far along Facebook's work on the hashtag is and the feature isn't likely to be introduced imminently," unnamed sources tell The Journal.

A hashtag, made popular by Twitter, precedes a word or phrase with a pound (#) symbol and serves as a way to organize and search tweets about an event, idea or person. The function gives users more reason to "stay logged in and see more ads."

Facebook has already mimicked some of Twitter's other features, like the ability to create "subscriber" lists and the use of the "@" sign to mention and tag people.

Instagram, which Facebook purchased for $1 billion last year, employs hashtags to allow users to sort photos by categories.